


Won't Give In

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-25
Updated: 2009-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:47:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Matt is six years old, Mello decides that he's his personal property. Matt's POV. Fifty sentences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't Give In

**Author's Note:**

> This one's a mix of canon and AU - the boys are in America, and the Kira case did happen, but obviously some things did not. Also, time is fluid in this piece: don't expect each sentence to move chronologically from the one before it, although the whole thing does wrap together to make a single story.
> 
> And yes, there is an utterly pointless Bleach reference here, but I'm unrepentant, haha. Also, you can play "spot the Finn brothers song" because I pretty much wrote this in tune to them; they're so beautiful.
> 
> I found the prompts at LJ's [1sentence](http://1sentence.livejournal.com) community.

  
_What does it mean when you promise someone,  
That no matter how hard or whatever may come:  
It means that I won't give in,  
'Cause everyone I love is here._

~ Split Enz, 'Won't Give In'.

*

  
**#01 - Ring**  
When Matt is six years old, Mello leans over the breakfast table, hands him a kitschy plastic ring from the bottom of the cereal box, and declares, to everyone who will listen, that it's proof that Matt is his own personal property; it says something about the strength of Mello's personality, that not a single child laughs when Matt simply accepts the ring, and studies it intently...

**#02 - Hero**  
_Heroes, _L had always told them, when he'd arrived at Wammy's shrouded in the scent of cake and icing dust, _are people who do things even when they know that they're terrified. _

**#03 - Memory**  
The day that Mello walks out, all of Matt's happiness becomes nothing more than a memory; he holds it close at night and replays it, over and over and over again, for fear that, if he doesn't, he'll forget what Mello looks like, and then he'll never find him again.

**#04 - Box**  
The parcel comes on a day when the rain is like a falling flood; it doesn't have a sender's name or address, but the postmarks are American, and the Hershey's bar, tucked away beneath the carefully wrapped comic books, speaks louder than any signature could.

**#05 - Run**  
The ones who leave have it easier than those who are left behind, that's what Matt believes, right up until the day when he first sees Mello's face again, and then his theories crash down around him like a too-fast car.

**#06 - Hurricane**  
Mello-in-leather is a hurricane, and Mello-with-a-gun is a nightmare, but Mello, with his fingers cradled at the sides of Matt's face, despite the fact that this is _really bad timing_, despite the fact that there's blood on his hands, is undeniably the most beautiful thing that Matt has ever seen.

**#07 - Wings**  
"You're so pretty you're practically _angelic_," Matt teases, because he's had a hard day, and because annoying Mello always brightens his mood: "I'll give you angelic," Mello growls, just like Matt had hoped, and backs him up against a wall in a tangle of eager hands and cranky kisses.

**#08 - Cold**  
The apartment that comes with Mello's shady job isn't truly bad, per se, and Matt rather likes the view into the city - but the wind creeps beneath the door, in winter, and that means he wakes up with Mello wrapped around him, hungry for body warmth, every single morning; Matt likes _that_ even better.

**#09 - Red**  
He's been sharing Mello's bed for two months before he finally starts to relax and believe, oh-so-tentatively, that Mello isn't going to vanish on him again - it's waking up to the sight of the blond sitting on the pillow beside him, eating milky cocoa pops from a chipped bowl, and wearing one of Matt's red shirts, that finally does it.

**#10 - Drink**  
People always take one look at Mello and assume that he's a drinker, but Matt knows better, and he enjoys the knowledge that the blond is simply leaning against the bar, sipping his beer, and, interchangeably, both cataloguing other peoples' stupidity, and checking out Matt's arse as the gamer works the pool table.

**#11 - Midnight**  
Midnight comes and midnight goes, and Matt's trying to meet a deadline, and Mello is just moan-grumble-moaning about some unimportant shit or other, and Matt looks up angrily, a retort already framed on his lips, but is hauled into silence by the way the screen-light catches on Mello's hair, the aggravating, _beautiful_ bastard.

**#12 - Temptation**  
"But nobody would know..." Mello whines, his hands pressed against the window, and stares at the chocolate like a kid gawping at puppies or something; Matt just slaps his boyfriend on the arse and hauls him away, and _thank God it's only four more days till Easter..._

**#13 - View**  
"It sounds," announces Mello, as if someone had just died and made him the local music deity, "like utter _shite_; that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it."

**#14 - Music**  
"Yeah, well, you can take your opinion and _stick it_," Matt retorts, batting the pretty boy's hand away from the car radio, "These are my wheels, ergo my music, and the door's right beside you if you'd rather walk."

**#15 - Silk**  
One of the many incongruities, to be found in Mello's apartment, includes the fact that the bed itself is old and flaky looking, the bedspread is cotton and childish, but the sheets are a rich, rich silk, and coloured as bright as autumn leaves.

**#16 - Cover**  
Mello smiles politely at the the telephone, as though the person at the other end can see him as well as hear him, hangs up, and then death-glares in Matt's direction, snarling, "And that is the absolute last time I cover for your sorry arse, mister - that wanker's convinced I'm your fucking _girlfriend_ now, did you know?"

**#17 - Promise**  
A nightmare, a hangover, the world gone crooked at the corners, and Matt is lost somewhere in the middle of a tangle of too-constricting sheets - but there's also a warm hand, stroking gently at his face, and, when he bursts out, "promise you'll never leave me," the hand just strokes even more warmly, and Matt is asleep again before he can hear the answer.

**#18 - Dream**  
Matt's rather of the opinion that the so-called American Dream, which so many of the people around him seem to be chasing, isn't quite what they think it is, but he figures that it's not really his problem, as he leans back against Mello, and loads a saved game; he's got his dream right here, after all.

**#19 - Candle**  
The underground world, which Mello plays with his skilful, nimble fingers, leaves no marks upon him that anyone else can discern - but Matt sees them, late at night, when the light in Mello's eyes flickers like a candle at its limit.

**#20 - Talent**  
Not even Matt can deny that they both have a certain gift for getting themselves into trouble.

**#21 - Silence**  
Midnight mass, and Mello has his head bowed and his hands clenched, white-knuckled and still, on the pew before him; Matt wonders what he prays about, but he never asks, just sits, and wanders amongst the silence of his own thoughts.

**#22 - Journey**  
"Back to England?" repeats Mello, with laughter in his eyes, and his hands behind his head, planning out their hypothetical future freedom, "not a bloody chance, Matt, not yet, let's try... let's try South America, first, _yeah_."

**#23 - Fire**  
As much as Matt enjoys making Mello's hackles rise, he's always careful to keep the blond in a good mood when it comes close to dinner time; Matt can't cook for shit, and the last time he'd tried he'd almost burnt the place down - besides, he likes to watch when Mello ties his hair back and starts to fuss with saucepans.

**#24 - Strength**  
One time, Near had asked him, "which of you two is the stronger?", and Matt honestly hadn't known how to answer.

**#25 - Mask**  
"No, no, no," he protests with a roll of his eyes, "just because he's got a mask doesn't automatically mean he's evil - look at the Vizard, they've got masks, and they're friggin' sexy!"

**#26 - Ice**  
When winter comes around, they spend a weekend in New York, just because Mello wants to ice skate in Central Park; Matt hadn't really wanted to go, but he's glad that he did, when Mello dance-skates into his arms and spins him around; Matt's pretty certain that everyone within sight wishes they were him, regardless of their usual preferences, especially when Mello throws his head back, a flurry of gold hair and pink cheeks, and really, truly laughs.

**#27 - Fall**  
"It's called _autumn_, actually," corrects Mello primly, for the umpteenth time that day, when someone mentions the season, just because he gets a twisted kick out of pissing off the locals.

**#28 - Forgotten**  
Even long after the Kira case has become past history, Mello still gets a pained look on his face sometimes, and then Matt knows he's remembering L.

**#29 - Dance**  
This is how it always goes, when they hit their favourite places for a drink - Matt plays pool and mucks around, but Mello just chills, until some song comes on that he can't resist, and then Matt finds himself being hauled to any available open space, regardless of what he'd been in the middle of, simply because Mello wants to dance, and the blond doesn't give a damn how people are looking at them; nor, admittedly, does Matt, once Mello is actually in his arms and _swaying. _

**#30 - Body**  
Late evening, and Mello's hair is wet from the shower, and it's going to making the sheets damp, but Matt doesn't care, just tosses their two towels onto a chair, kisses him with a contented moan, and begins the only form of worship he's interested in.

**#31 - Sacred**  
Mello is wrong when he calls Matt an atheist, but Matt only whispers his prayers long after his deity is sound asleep, and curled up against him in the bed that they share.

**#32 - Farewells**  
"I'm only going for the fucking weekend, Matt," Mello protests, exasperated, and Matt hates himself for acting like a child, but it takes all of his willpower to kiss his lover goodbye and let him walk out that door.

**#33 - World**  
People are always going on about how big the world is, or how small the world is, depending on their mood or their perspective on the matter; Matt doesn't care either way, because the world never really interested in him in the first place.

**#34 - Formal**  
The day he walks in their front door to find Mello wearing a formal dress and doing his hair up, for an undercover job, Matt suddenly remembers that he's not, strictly speaking, gay, and, right now, all _he_ can see, as he informs his lover in a smooth voice, is a girl he'd _really_ like to do.

**#35 - Fever**  
Near sticks to Christmas cards, and the occasional work phone-call, until the day he has a temperature, and rings up in the middle of the night, babbling much-too-coherent things into the telephone, and Matt doesn't quite know what to say, except that _Mello is asleep right now, Nate, and I don't think I should wake him up..._ it's the truth, too, but Matt can't quite look at the phone in the same way for days afterwards, and he can't help but wonder whether Near remembers having done it.

**#36 - Laugh**  
"Don't fucking laugh!" protests Mello fiercely, but he's already starting to grin too, and the next moment it's deteriorated into a pillow fight using the sofa cushions, which weren't really made to withstand that kind of treatment.

**#37 - Lies**  
Actually, Mello doesn't lie half as often as people tend to think; it's more a matter of them not wanting to believe that his truths could be accurate.

**#38 - Forever**  
There's a song from the late seventies, in amongst the collection of cassettes that he plays in his car, in which the singer says that he can promise love for the present, but that the future is unclear; Matt always finds himself looking at Mello, when it's playing... it's just that he hopes that his _here and now_ lasts until they die, that's all.

**#39 - Overwhelmed**  
It takes a real skill to shut Mello up, but the first time that Matt had kissed him in public, leaning in so-very-slowly beneath the plastic mistletoe in a department store, Mello had just clung to him as though there were a risk that he might vanish on the spot; then he'd pulled back, wide-eyed and his lashes trembling, and hadn't said a single word.

**#40 - Whisper**  
Three o'clock in the morning, according to the dull glow of Matt's watch, and he smiles into his pillow as he hears Mello whisper his name, as if to check whether he's awake or not - Matt doesn't answer, just smiles broader, when a kiss lights upon his cheek, and Mello says three little words that rarely see the shine of daylight.

**#41 - Wait**  
"Just wait one fucking _minute_, you batshit moron," Matt barks, and tries to save his game before Mello can turn the power off at the wall.

**#42 - Talk**  
When Mello gets angry, he doesn't talk; he either screeches or he sulks, and Matt doesn't know which of the two is the harder to deal with.

**#43 - Search**  
There's always this crazy last minute rush-around, just to find the one pair of boots that Mello wants to wear and which are, of course, always the one pair he can't find.

**#44 - Hope**  
Matt shivers as Mello's hands, cold from the wind and the rain outside, slide beneath his clothes; Mello shivers, when Matt's own hands, warm and hungry, stroke through damp blond hair, and then apply themselves to the task of undressing him - _it's going to be alright now_, Matt silently informs the luggage that has been let fall, just inside the door.

**#45 - Eclipse**  
He remembers a day, when Mello was almost fourteen, and they'd been taken outside to study an eclipse; Matt himself had missed it, because he'd been too busy watching the changing light cast itself over Mello's face.

**#46 - Gravity**  
The laws of physics leave them laughing and gasping, as they fall to the sofa in a heavy heap of arms and legs; Matt just grins wickedly, and then makes use of his mouth to claim possession of every inch of pale skin within reach.

**#47 - Highway**  
Two days driving, that's how long is always required, before Mello stops bitching about Matt's taste in music, sits back, and instead starts to sing along; that's when the real road trip starts, so far as Matt is concerned, as he taps his hands, in time to the beat, against the leather-covered steering wheel.

**#48 - Unknown**  
"Where are we going?" Mello had asked him, a week after the Kira case was over, "what do we do now?", and it had been Matt who had discharged them both from hospital, Matt who had packed their bags, and Matt who had pointed at a random place on an unfamiliar map, and named that their destination.

**#49 - Lock**  
Mello, in his lap; Mello, his hands entangled in Matt's hair; Mello, his breath hot and short and gasping as he arches his back and _comes_; Mello, as he collapses, flushed, against him, breathing out words that he still barely dares to speak aloud; Mello, in the end, is the lock and key which binds Matt to the face of the planet - Mello is what makes it all make sense.

**#50 - Breathe**  
A hotel, somewhere, two names, not their own, and only Near knows how to contact them, but he won't - this is a new life, and the two of them lie like newborns, naked in each others' arms, listening to the rain outside - Mello puts his head on Matt's chest to count his breathing, and Matt puts his hand beneath the pillow, pulls out a ring, and declares it as proof that Mello is his own personal property; it says something about the strength of Matt's personality that the blond doesn't laugh, just takes it, studies it intently, and then slides it onto his finger, before putting his head back down, and kissing Matt's chest every time the red-head breathes...


End file.
